Thursday, November 29, 2012

From the dumb criminal and/or crazy-brave victim files comes this story from yesterday's Log Cabin Democrat.A Salvation Army bell ringer told police that he was collecting donations in front of the local J.C. Penney store on Tuesday night when a man in a red Camaro pulled up and offered him a dollar. When the ringer turned to thank the driver after putting the buck in his kettle, he found himself staring down the barrel of a handgun, with the driver demanding his kettle. The worker refused, then told cops he and the gunman engaged in an intense staredown for awhile before the robber finally gave up and went away, $1 poorer.

Speaking of Crime

A surge in misdemeanor marijuana arrests by Little Rock police, concentrated in poorer areas of town, seems a relevant topic in Police Chief Kenton Buckner's remarks on the roots of crime in the city. /more/

Jermain Taylor, the boxer, was in Circuit Court today for sentencing on assault convictions by Circuit Judge Leon Johnson. He received a suspended sentence. /more/

It's important to appreciate the little things ... like the fact that, on this lovely April morning, you're not locked up for life inside the near-colorless concrete tomb that is the Arkansas Department of Correction's Varner Supermax Prison near Grady in Lincoln County. A rather haunting video posted to the ADC's Youtube page features a series of rarely-seen views inside Varner. /more/

Sentences doled out by state judges in criminal cases should be appealable, a legislative task force recommended today. Currently, those who are convicted of crimes have no judicial means for challenging the severity of their punishment. Also, debate about racial disparities in the criminal justice system. /more/

Paul Bookout, the former Senate president pro tem who pleaded guilty to felony mail fraud last year, was sentenced to 18 months of federal prison today. U.S. District Judge Brian Miller also ordered Bookout to pay $150,048 in restitution, according to court records. He's to report to prison May 2. /more/

Tom Cotton, never missing a chance to take a hard line policy stance, is leading the opposition to the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, a Senate bill that seeks to address mass incarceration at the federal level by reducing the length of mandatory minimum sentences. The bill has broad bipartisan support, including from the Koch brothers, the ACLU and the White House. Cotton's statements against the bill are highly misleading, the Washington Post finds. /more/

Paul Grice, 38, has been serving a sentence for second-degree murder and residential burglary since 1998. He evidently escaped by covering a razor wire fence with a blanket and climbing over. /more/

KARK's Shannon Miller reports that police are searching near the Fourche Creek area by University and Colonel Glenn for what could be human remains. Detectives indicated they may have found a human leg, according to Miller. /more/

A 25-year-old fatally shot at 14 Baltimore St. marks the third homicide Little Rock has seen in 24 hours, KARK reports. The first victim was Junius Pitts, Jr., 19 — shot in the 5400 block of Asher shortly after midnight. Eunice Lopez, 27, was shot in the 8400 block of Keats Dr. at around 10 a.m. Lopez was reportedly holding her child at the time of the shooting. /more/

Arkansas Business reports that H. Dennis Smiley Jr. was sentenced today to 97 months in federal prison. Smiley, the former president of Arvest Bank's Benton County market, pleaded guilty to bank fraud last August. Smiley was also ordered to pay restitution of $4.9 million and two years of supervised release will follow his prison sentence. /more/

More by David Koon

A wayward Mercedes-Benz careened off Main Street in North Little Rock following a traffic accident Saturday night, with the car smashing through a window and destroying a door at Argenta Bead Co. The impact knocked over shelves and scattered what the owner of the business called "thousands and thousands and thousands" of beads and charms, including several expensive and rare antique glass beads — across the store.

The Governor's office today announced the creation of an "Office of Transformation" along with a new chief officer for the agency, with Gov. Asa Hutchinson saying the goal of the office would be to "drive efficiency" in government and streamline state operations.

Arkansas Department of Corrections spokesman Solomon Graves issued a press release this morning with details of a small prison riot that apparently occurred last night at the Varner Unit in Grady.

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This just in from state Education Department: Today, Commissioner Johnny Key reached an agreement with Dr. Dexter Suggs that resulted in Dr. Suggs’ immediate resignation as superintendent of the Little Rock School District.

A petition drive has begun to encourage a demand that Sen. Jason Rapert pay for the legal fees in defending his Ten Commandments monument proposed for the state Capitol grounds. It's more work by the Satanic Temple, which has fought church-state entanglement around the country.

Dexter Suggs may have cleared out his office before the workday began today, but he still has lingering legal matters as defendant in lawsuits against him and the state.

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Next week a series of meetings on the use of technology to tackle global problems will be held in Little Rock by Club de Madrid — a coalition of more than 100 former democratic former presidents and prime ministers from around the world — and the P80 Group, a coalition of large public pension and sovereign wealth funds founded by Prince Charles to combat climate change. The conference will discuss deploying existing technologies to increase access to food, water, energy, clean environment, and medical care.

Plus, recipes from the Times staff.

Sen. Jason Rapert (R-Conway) was on "Capitol View" on KARK, Channel 4, this morning, and among other things that will likely inspire you to yell at your computer screen, he said he expects someone in the legislature to file a bill to do ... something about changing the name of the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport.

So fed up was young Edgar Welch of Salisbury, N.C., that Hillary Clinton was getting away with running a child-sex ring that he grabbed a couple of guns last Sunday, drove 360 miles to the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington, D.C., where Clinton was supposed to be holding the kids as sex slaves, and fired his AR-15 into the floor to clear the joint of pizza cravers and conduct his own investigation of the pedophilia syndicate of the former first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of state.

There is almost nothing real about "reality TV." All but the dullest viewers understand that the dramatic twists and turns on shows like "The Bachelor" or "Celebrity Apprentice" are scripted in advance. More or less like professional wrestling, Donald Trump's previous claim to fame.

Dustin McDaniel gives the thumbs up to a man set to dismantle EPA regulations.

The Arkansas Supreme Court today upheld state statutes that mandate a court order to list parent names on a birth certificate other than the biological mother and father. The Court threw out the ruling of Pulaski County Circuit Court Judge Tim Fox, who found last year that the state Health Department had violated the Constitution by refusing to list both parent names of children of same-sex couples (the children of the three couples who were plaintiffs in the case were conceived via sperm donation).